MORNING STORIES TRANSCRIPT
Driving Dave: From the highways and byways of the blogosphere, Dave Winer tells us why "there ain't no stoppin us now." A portrait of one of the papas of podcasting
Tony Kahn: Hi. This is Tony Kahn, the producer and director of Morning Stories from WGBH-FM in Boston with today’s podcast. Today we’re going to do something a little bit different for our podcast. We’re going to give you the first in what I hope will be a series of profiles of podcasters, starting with one of the dads of podcasting, the Papacaster himself, you might call him, Dave Winer. Dave dropped by our studios here at WGBH in Boston recently and we sat down and talked in a studio for an hour, which is an unusual experience for Dave. It was so quiet. As you’ll hear, his computer got upset. [laughs] We talked for about an hour and, and then, in my fiendish way [sound of a door opening], I took our recording and I walked down to the Morning Stories laboratory [sound of creaking door] in the basement here at WGBH and, with Gary, [sound of arc-ing electric charge] from the pieces, and with a final shot of electricity, I reassembled a lifeform that moves [sound of agonized cry], and talks, even thinks like Dave [fiendish laugh].
Gary Mott: [In classic “Igor” tone] Mr. Kahn...it’s alive.
Tony Kahn: [Clears throat] Actually, it’s only about one side of Dave that really intrigued me. Dave, the Johnny Appleseed of podcasting. Dave, the evangelist. The Dave who, as we all know, has been driving all around the country spreading the word about podcasting. So here’s today’s Morning Story, Driving Dave.
[Radio sounds, from announcer: “Expressway southbound is heavy pockets to South Bay, with a right lane breakdown at Squantum...” Sound softens and continues under the narrative]
Dave Winer: So I’m traveling a lot these days. And I don’t have any sense that there is meaning to it. I just like to drive. I went for twenty years without taking a serious road trip. And I used to do it and I used to love it and, and then I got very serious and, you know, sort of became an icon of Silicon Valley and, you know, pundit, and I was also a contributing editor at Wired magazine, which I thought was really cool. Um...but I’m much happier as a driver [chuckles]. There’s no place that you can’t go that you can’t get online. And that hasn’t been true until like this month. I mean, the only question is whether, whether you’re going to get it for free or you’re going to have to pay for it. And you pretty much get it for free.
[Podcast begins. Music... “Head out on the highway...”]
[Podcast: Dave’s voice: “Hello, everybody! Let me turn the music down a little bit here. Good morning. It’s Morning Coffee Notes...um...and it’s cool to be doin’ a podcast again. On the first leg, the first day of this trip it’s going to take me into the great state of Delaware. [chuckles] And then after that, and then after that Maryland, and then through the District of Columbia, and then out on the other side into Virginia. And then from there, um, south to Greensboro, North Carolina for three days and then, uh, to Chapel Hill, North Carolina....”[broadcast from podcast trails off but sound continues very low under the interview]
It’s a little disconcerting, actually. I really am...I kinda, I kind of like...there’s a moment that happens...that has been happening in the last few days is “Ok – I want to go home now” and then I go “Oh – that’s right.” [laughs]
Tony Kahn: Where’s home?
Dave Winer There’s no home! I have no home. [door slams] I’m -- My SUV is my shopping cart, basically, you know. I’m one of these homeless people with a really ... a Lexus shopping cart.
[Muffled sounds and then a steady electric sound of “feedback”]
Dave Winer: Whoa!
Tony Kahn: Your laptop is going “eeee.”
Dave Winer: It didn’t like this room. It says “it’s too quiet; I’ve gotta make some noise.” [laughs]
Tony Kahn: You like to open your laptop and do things with it?
Dave Winer When I’m doing a podcast, basically I have the laptop open. If I’m doing it in my car, I don’t. But if I’m doing it in a place where I can have it open, I do, because there’ll may well come a time in this that one of us is going to look something up and ...
Tony Kahn: Right, right . . .
Dave Winer ... it’s going to be hard to do if we don’t have a net connection and a, a computer open [computer buzzes] I also thought that I would do a podcast of this myself, so I would have an Mp3 of it.
Tony Kahn: Boy, you know there really is a difference between broadcasting and podcasting and wouldn’t it be nice to see how much of that we can whittle away?
Dave Winer I often find myself shouting at the radio, “Why don’t you ask the guy the real question?” or “Why do you let them lie to you like that?” you know. They sort of...
Tony Kahn: Give me an example.
Dave Winer I know when. It was like – and this included NPR – it was with the whole business about the Dean scream and how much significance was given to it. [sound: Howard Dean: “We’re going to South Dakota! And Oregon! And Washington! And Michigan! And then we’re going to Washington, D.C. to take back the White House! Yeahhhhh!” Crowd cheers].
Actually, I was at Dean Headquarters that night and it’s horribly distorted, you know, because he’s got a unidirectional microphone in his hand and you can hear something that the audience ... that they can’t. Well, why didn’t somebody just say, “Hold on a minute. The guy just like got enthusiastic. [laugh] I mean, what’s so terrible about that?” [repeat of Dean recording: “... and then we’re going to Washington, D.C. to take back the White House!”]. Three or four days after that Diane Sawyer interviewed him and his wife and he’s like behaving like a perfect gentleman. I mean, if I were him, if he were showing some real emotion, ok?, he’d be strangling her. [laughs] It’s like “How dare you drag me down to this level?
Tony Kahn: Now what would blogging have done that would have kept this on a more even keel?
Dave Winer There was a tape that night that showed the room from the perspective of the audience. In that room you couldn’t hear Dean scream. We would have broadcast that all over the world. This idea that we have to be ... run our lives according to the media’s timetable. I mean, Tony, that’s ... this is going to crumble. It’s going to be more decentralized, more person-to-person ... um ... and ... and we’re going to have the tools that we need to get the information that we want. This was actually some advice that I gave to the New York Times and I think that it applies equally well here. “Why don’t you have a blogger on your op-ed page?” Somebody who had been running a blog and will continue to run a blog on their own terms, and that person would write a regular column just like Maureen Dowd, just like Paul Krugman, like William Saffire, but at the same time this person would also run a blog. And all of a sudden you’ve opened up a portal to the blogging world. And ... and ... and ... you know what would happen? This, this person would turn into a Pied Piper. And Pied Pipers are, are one of the secrets of how blogs work and how podcasting works. You can ask any blogger, pretty much, is like “Who, who got you into blogging?” and they can answer the question – I mean–
[Podcast “You blog because you have a passion for whatever it is you’re blogging about. If you’re running a news-oriented blog it’s because you have a passion for news; if you’re writing a blog about your children ...”]
Tony Kahn: The first time I thought seriously about doing a podcast was when I heard you start talking about whatever was on your mind when you were driving in your car and you included that in your blog and I suddenly realized, why am I listening to this guy? I don’t know him. He’s going on about stuff which is sometimes of interest to me, sometimes not, but the very fact that you were reaching out to me from your car, talking to yourself and letting me overhear it left me feeling, in my own car, that I was having company!
Dave Winer Yeah, I was talking to you; I wasn’t talking to myself. I was talking to you.
[Podcast: Dave Winer’s voice: There is somebody listening who could do the feature ... YOU. And that is the way, that is the secret, that’s what blogs, that’s where the power of blogs are ... .] [sound trails off and continues under next portion of interview.]
Come as you are. Meaning we, you don’t have to dress up for us. Always tell the truth. And we’re just folks. There are so many people that are getting active in podcasting now. And, um, I want you to, to invite them in and and to take their ideas ... you know, let them flow out through you and then flow all your content out through them through the podcasting world. . .
[sounds of Dave walking back to his car somewhat later . . . ]
I want to park somewhere for like a month and a half to two months because there is some programming work I want to do and I want to like get off the road for a bit of time. ‘Cause it’s what’s new that, I think, counts the most. I mean, I have a motto that’s ... my motto is “still digging” and that came from ConEd in New York. They used to put up these signs when they were working....
[Both laugh]
Tony Kahn: That was a threat; it wasn’t, it wasn’t a motto!
Dave Winer So, I have -- I’ve already designed my, my tombstone, my gravestone. What it, what it will say is “He’s not digging any more.”
[Sound of car door shutting.]
And, and so as long as I’m still digging, that’s the best place to go.
[Sound of keys in ignition, ding-ding, radio music starting, car motor]
I think the iPod could be much better, too. There are lots of ways that it could be better, not just for playing podcasts, but also for playing mp3s.
Tony Kahn: You can say anything you want because I can edit it out.
Dave Winer I can put it back! [laughs]
Tony Kahn: Isn’t that ... Now there you go, see? That’s what a podcast is.
Dave Winer: Yeah . .
[Music fades]
And, as we fade off into the distance through the magic of audio editing, we bring you the end of today’s Morning Story, Driving Dave. Podcasts at WGBH’s Morning Stories are made possible, in part, with support from Ipswitch, a leader in file transfer software. Further information is available for you at their website,
The great thing about podcasting, for me is that – and I hope it’s a spirit that stays young forever – is that it’s still very much a personal connection. So as part of our ongoing series, we’re going to make an effort to introduce you to some other podcasters in a way they might not normally introduce themselves, including podcasters well known and maybe not so well known. And, as always, we want to keep hearing from you, so send your email to us at
Now, thanks for listening to today’s podcast, but you know, all of our morning stories are not yet podcasted. But they have all been broadcast and they live forever as streaming audio files on our web site, so if you’d like to hear them as well, please visit us at
Bye!
[End of recording]
Transcribed by: Bev Sykes